Justin an Irish Rose

Englishman worth a gamble

Followers of the golf scene have another gem ahead this week, with the Irish Open taking place over four days from Thursday morning. A truly talented field is in attendance, and you can bet on the action right here at Coral – click to get involved.

Armchair fans can follow every swing live on Sky Sports, and a perfect way to add further excitement to what promises to be a thrilling renewal is, of course, with a winning bet. Coral take you through the main players.

McIlroy a predictable favourite

You won’t be surprised to see traders price Rory McIlroy up as early favourite to succeed at The Strands Course, County Londonderry, and there’s 6/1 available on him claiming two in-a-row. The popular Brit admitted he loves playing around here, and certainly proved it last year when handing in a winning score of 12 under.

Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama leads the chasing pack, and can be backed at 8/1 to overturn the local lad on Sunday. He gave a great account of himself in the US Open, and a similar effort will surely see him go close enough this week, but he’s too much of a gamble for us, so we’re happy to look further down the pecking order.

Rose to bloom at Portstewart

We’re going to trust our stake money to Justin Rose. The pick isn’t going to Northern Ireland in the best form we’ve ever seen from him, granted, but the challenges of this course should play to his strengths, and I don’t think that can be said for a few of those quoted shorter in the betting. The 36-year-old Joburg-born Englishman was seen flying at Augusta not too long ago, and we’ll take a repeat of the kind of mood he was in there.

Losing to Garcia in a tense finish seems to have knocked the stuffing out of our selection, and his performances with the putter in hand since have been sketchy, to say the least. He’s shaping like a man not enjoying his golf at the minute, but I expect that to all change this weekend. A gamble, of course, but our traders make it one worth having.

Plenty of ways to back Rose at Coral

We’ve not seen or heard a lot out of the Rose camp for a while that’s going to encourage punters to rush out and throw bundles of cash on his chances, but you don’t have to. He’s currently going around at 14/1, and that ensures we can keep our stakes low and hope for a bit of luck that will lead to a decent pay out.

There’s plenty of ways to follow us in on Rose – you can have him in the first-round leader market at 20/1, or more reserved backers could try their luck on him finishing in the top-10 at the final count, which will return 6/5. One for accumulators, perhaps. If you are playing the outright market, you’ll be hard pushed to find more generous each-way terms, as our traders are handing out 1/5 the odds the best seven. Get your share.